


Always there

by laNill



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Intimacy, Light Angst, M/M, Missing Scene, Romance, Sad with a Happy Ending, Slight spoilers, five stage of grief, i swear its not so angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-12-28 09:57:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21134846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laNill/pseuds/laNill
Summary: He has a weak spot for kenma,friends said.They are always together.It was not that he has a ‘soft spot’, but they are always like this. In most of all their lives.They had always been together, from an early age. Where Kuroo's hand ended, Kenma's hand began.-The graduation day is arrived, and Kenma doesn’t want to accept that this could be the last time they walk home together.





	Always there

**Author's Note:**

> last chapter left me sad and needy to know more than that (like.. who tf won the nationals?!?!). it's a very little missing moment post-canon, a bit nostalgic n angsty - i promise there would be very soft n fluffy  
this is one of my barely acceptable attemps to write in english. if it's confusing i apologize.  
enjoy ♡

Kenma has never be good with words, nor does he feel motivated to either.

That morning he has lesser than usual - because he woke up at three a.m. and he couldn’t get back to sleep.

He is tired, weighed down by an annoying numbness that leaves him dissatisfied to roll between the blankets, until he takes off the DS from the case and its opaque light is enclosed under thick pillows.

His mother is silent at breakfast, and he is late and the absence of sleep slows down all his neuronal function - but he is not blind, he sees her indulgent looks that follow him in every step around the kitchen table. Swaps fleeting empathic looks with his father on the doorstep.

“Be happy, dear; ok?” a kind wish, comprehensive - comfortable - eyes accompany his hurried, sleepy gestures of tie his shoes and wear one headphone.

Something starts buzzing at the base of the neck. Like something important he need to try to remember but he just can't.

(He remembered it. He had only prolonged the time when he would have to face reality.

How could he forget?

He cannot.)

Kuroo is waiting for him at his usual place, ten steps from the house gate. The impeccable order of his uniform is unrelated to him, it’s the first thing he notices approaching him. The perfectly ironed shirt, the jacket buttoned up to the starched collar, the not-crooked tie.

_Ah, so it's that day._

He should feel anguish. He should feel even sad or scared, almost frustrated – he should be feel empty, with the realization that there wouldn’t be another day like this.

With the corner of his eye, Kuroo immediately intercepts him; his lips stretches in a lazy smile, a soft bending of the mouth that turns into a curve more pronounced at the left side.

“Who are you?”

“I'm cool when I make myself up, aren't I?” Kuro teases, clearly thinks himself like some sorta summer boy in all his glory.

Kenma blinks – one, two, three times, “You're not.”

“I am.”

“.. ‘are not.”

It should feel different - it  _should be_ different - but everything takes place in everyday routine. The ds in his hands completing the level he started that morning, commuters on the quay lined up before them, napping on the metro, a photo in a different angle of the cat on the wall that runs along the public park.

His silences are filled by Kuroo and he does nothing to soften or suppress them. Even with music he hears them, even with his full attention to the game. He hears and observes everything about him.

“Lattè or tea?” Kuroo, waiting in front of the automatic machine, seems to ponder.

Kenma stares at him, meeting his gaze before hearing him finish. "Today you need coffee."

It is as automatic and easy as putting on a glove.

“Mh.” He nods, taking off his earphones. "Craft Boss’.”

“Then I'll finish the rest.” Because he know this is too much caffè – even with sugar – for kenma to handle.

And he wonders if he should feel different, somehow.

( _How could he forget?_ )

  
  


*

  
  


The garden is flooded with light, thin gleams play with the branches of the linden trees, flickering shadows on the dusty soil of the ground - it's a bit cold outside, but the jacket absorbs the warmth of a blinding sun. The cherry blossoms are few but everyone has gathered around them to take the last photos, memories to keep pinned to the heart - uncertain smiles, laughter and wishes shouted in ephemeral showers of applause, an unstable happiness to hide the tears at the corners of the eyes and the sad fold of the eyebrows.

Kenma looks at them with perplexity and discomfort. A group of friends around one of them, two girls walking towards the toilets with puffy eyes and their degree clasped in their hands, a girl enveloped by the arms of a boy behind a tree trunk.

He does not understand. He can't understand the reason for that sadness.

(He woke up with the sun creeping between his dark lashes. The numbness embraced him in soft, comforting heat, different from what he remembered when he fell asleep. Kuroo's lap welcomed his head better than the tree bark on which he had dozed off could ever make.

He knew it even before he opened his eyes. Kuroo's face looked up at him in an eyebrows arch, a hand coming down against his forehead.

“Are you cold? Your choices of the places to nap are terrible.” The way the voice clotted in his throat was sharp with warning, but he was always gentle - _so gentle_ \- that came out soft. “If you fall asleep outside, you’ll catch a cold-”

A ray wounded painfully Kenma’s eyes, forcing him to tighten them again – a glint of tears at the corners. Disgruntled groan teared out of his throat, Kuroo laugh at him - his laugh like a scratch on the stone, hoarse and deep, vibrated in his chest.

He felt something at the corners of his eyes, his eyelids - he knew his calloused-ball fingers better than his own.

“Don't do it again.” There was a frown in his voice, something he recognized as a gentle whine, a kind warning as his fingers smoothed every hint of pain.

“It feels good.” He justified himself. He used to search the warmth of the sun like a cat choose the slice of the floor where it’s sure to find warmth.

“You could ask me, I'm the _best_ pillow in the whole world, you know?”

Kenma didn't answer but he felt his lips pinch upwards. The fingers slowly moved away and there was something, a sense of loss at the base of the throat that seemed to want to scream - don't go, don't go,  _don't go_ .

“Open your eyes, Kenma.” He whispered, lovely and patiently. The way he always did.

He obeyed, rubbing his eyelids before opening one eye, and the other. The light, at first a blinding halo above his head, now milder.

Kuroo, above him, “I'm always here; it still hurts?”

The blazing smile like the sun. The eyes bright and black like ink -  _adoring_ .

Kenma denied. It didn't hurt anymore.)

The call in line of Yamamoto brings him back.

He doesn’t understand. He can't understand  _why_ he can't feel what they feel.

It was normal, after all. They wouldn’t leave forever, it wasn’t a goodbye - there were smartphones or computers, after all, with messages you could keep ties for as long as you wanted, you could call and be called back.

So  _why_ .

In the light of the sun, the red of the uniforms sparkles, shines like a burning flame so brilliant that it hurts the sight.

The contrast between the bright colors of the sports uniform and the dark shades of the school one is striking, like a clear line that now divides the members that remain from the older ones –  _ex members_ .

Kenma is forced to averts his gaze - he does it almost urgently, hands curling unconsciously by his sides, an emptiness inside himself that increases a little more with an increasing annoyance. 

He hears Lev's strident whines, Taketora's noisy gurgles as trying to hold back tears for some manly pride. Even Yaku is moved.

He sinks his hands in his pockets, golden eyes glowing faint with something like guilty. Makes him look distracted and a little lost. Why? It’s not that they will never see each other again.

Across the team members, Kenma recognizes Kuroo’s lazy eyes fix on him. He looks at him and smiles warmly and softly enough to make his heart melts, cheeks like the pale pink nuance of the cherry blossoms.

Kuroo goes around Kai, Lev and Yaku’s figures, unhurried, getting closer.

“See you later?” 

Kenma arches an eyebrows at him. “You can go home; the ceremony is ended.”

“I'll wait for you outside, let's go home together.” And the kind phrase hides a will that doesn't want to bargain. Kenma knows him enough to let him do it, sighing.

“What are you doing until four?”

“I take a ride to Shinjuku with the others. Don't envy me too much for my freedom.”

Kenma ignores the grin that bends his lips and shows his white teeth, giving him his back and returning to the classrooms in the usual route he took. Nothing had changed, after all.

  
  


Kenma doesn’t understand, that heartbreaking sadness.

  
  


*

  
  


Kuroo had always called them ‘the stairway of shame’. It’s there that Kenma isolates himself before an interrogation he is afraid to did, a game that makes him nervous or a nap when outside is offlimit for bad weather.

He sits here even that day, during the self-management hour - on graduation day nothing will be done for the rest of the day, after all. He take off the phone from his pocket. Kuroo has sent him a photo of the purikura that he took together with Yaku and Kai at Shinjuku.

_>> You look dumb_ .

He replies to him, and feels so magnanimous that he spent his time adding the ‘.’ at the end of the sentence.

Kuroo answer almost immediately, with as many stupid sentences - comfort twists around his heart, just for an instant.

_>> don't be jelly, I'm having fun for you too : D_

_>> you love me anyway <33_

_>> don't worry, you're always in my thoughts little pie!_

Plea vibes itches his hand, comforting to the point of annoying - Kuroo overdo almost everything, he has no half measures: all or nothing.

Kenma’s always had all of him. All his attention, everything he could give him; he had never denied him anything he couldn't give him.

( _He has a weak spot for kenma_ , friends said.

_They are always together_ .

Most of it were phrases that never mattered to Kenma. It was not that he have a ‘soft spot’, but they are always like this. In most of all their lives.

They had always been together ever since they were kids. Where Kuroo's hand ended, Kenma's hand began.

It didn't matter if there were difficulties; as long as they were together, their world was complete -  _whole_ . They could walk different paths, but when the name  _Kuro_ came out of his lips, it would always be followed by his own name  _Kenma_ pronounced as if he’s delivering a promise – of care, of protection, of remedy,  _of love_ .

As long there was  _Kuroo and Kenma_ . 

As long they were together.

Leaning sideways, he always found Kuroo's back to support him.)

Leaning sideways, he finds the wall of the stairs to support him.

And the emptiness in the chest widens a little more.

  
  


*

  
  


When he gets out, the wind blows on his face in a warm gust.

A tiny pang of nervousness makes itself known in Kenma’s stomach, curling his fingers.

The chatter of the students is a chaotic noise, it bothers him; with his eyes fixed on the ground he sees the shadow of the people, shapeless, indistinct.

He found himself search for the taller one, that one who always walked beside his own, shoulder to shoulder, searches for the most hoarse voice and the mocking cadence, the laughter similar to hyena-verse.

( He would have learned that there would be no longer that familiar, safe, steady shadow to accompany, embrace – complete his own.

Nor the voice he wanted to hear more than any other noise. )

“Kenma!” above else, eyes quickly lift up.

He sees him and doesn’t hear anything else, he doesn’t feel anything else other than what he quickly learns to list as relief. That wild tips of his hair, the slim body, the shape of the hand of which he could list every wound and every crooked finger.

His smile that shines, sparkles on the face of an untamed boy. Light dances on the laughing irises, softer like an autumn sunset.

The name comes out in a sigh, “Kuro ..”

A part of him quietens, comforted by his sight. Everything is fine, he repeats like a discordant chant, nothing will change, nothing will be different.

His name was still tied to his own.

  
  


The other part of him, the most cautious and rational, perceives the emptiness becoming a chasm.

  
  


*

  
  


It's easy to let things flows pasts of ourselves. Trying to stop or change them is tiring, and so is the frustration for being useless and powerless.

Nothing can be done for certain things.

In hindsight, Kenma should have understood that.

( He had understood it when Kuroo had looked at him with that smile of his - not coy, nor that kind of smirk to pretend to be cocky or that everything was going well. The curve of his lips was soft, it was  _his_ smile, blunt with a sorrowful tenderness, sparkling - crackling like a flame.

_It belongs to you_ , he had once told him almost as a joke.

Only to him. )

Even if he can't do anything, even if the knots are intertwined in the throat and the blood thickening in the veins, in the heart - he begins to understand, in hindsight, that he can't sustain its weight.

( _How could he forget?_ )

The river gurgles slowly to his left, the grass and escarpment divides the street where one walks next to the other, the sound of the ds’ buttons on which he has immersed his attention harmonizes with the distant noise of the city, with the sigh of the water.

The echo of an afternoon, of repeated afternoons - one after another, habitual, familiar - the ghost of memories twists around his heart and sinks into the void that he carries. On the brick, he feels sucked inside.

(There was a child's profile, a dirty face due to falls and fatigue, scrapped hands and a crook's smile as he moves like a grasshopper.

There was the profile of a teenager, messy hair, the smell of sweat, of pepsi on his skin tanned amber, shiny for the heat.

There was the profile of a young boy, his broad shoulders that would have sworn to bear all the weight of the world, for his little kenma, the deep and broken sighs of training as he supported him back home.

The twin shadows, two complementary souls, stood out on the ground, softened by the golden hours. )

It is barely perceptible - the trembling emotion he hides; the vibrant colors of the console tightly grasped between his hand become blurred, faint and blinking in and out of focus into a watery fog.

The curve of a tear rolls on his cheek. 

There is a crack on his jade little face, imperturbable and expressionless, his eyebrows bend indolently, tightening his eyelids; and can hear the heart scream - don't leave, don't leave,  _don't leave_ .

Kuroo, so sensitive and good that he didn't even deserve that concern, halts his stride as if he was called - turning around, discovering himself walking alone. His face, when it rests on kenma’s tears, is divided between an awe and painful concern.

“Kenma ..”

A sob bubbles up across the throat, shivers runs on his skin, an imperceptible throb of the tightening lips - bleached hair slips forward to hide his face and Kenma is glad for having them long; make it sure he doesn’t see what I feel, he finds himself pray.

Make it sure he doesn’t understand how painful the thought makes me think that tomorrow, the day after that, and the one after that - too many days, they had never been so far from each other - would no longer be with him.

Another sob lefts from his lips, tears like small drops of crystal glide one behind the other.

He is so stupid.

“ –‘msorry.. im- .. hn” he apologizes without knowing why. Because he knows that this will be the last time they walk home together, and he didn't want to remember it in that way.

“Hey, Kenma.. shh, it's all right, okay? It's all right,” gentle fingers caress his face - and Kenma can't see him falters, he can’t see Kuroo’s total vulnerability to his pain. There is love - disarming, encompassing, complete - while he brushes his hair away, searching for his eyes; they have been together long enough that Kuroo knows the subtleties buried in his expressionlessness. “I'm here, I'm here. Don't cry, I'm not leaving.”

The heart aches, fumbles for his selfishness as he mumbles, “You will no longer be here..” as if Kuroo can do something about this.

“I will be. I will always be here for you.” Firmness in his voice, in the light pressure on his cheeks as his fingers gather every single tear. “Look at me, Kenma .. open your eyes, look at me.”

Kenma has no right to be sad. Everyone was, and it doesn't change what can't be avoided. What do he expect? everyone sooner or later graduates and leaves: this is how school works, after all.

Hesitant, he bends to Kuroo's mild request. It takes a while to see beyond the tears, focusing on the contours and the fold of his smile. He feels so loved, he is so loved when Kuroo looks at him that way - like he's his whole world.

The hand seeks, holds, leans on his shirt. He wants to impress that he is  _here_ .

“See? I'm not leaving, I'm here. I will always be here.” Kuroo sooths, patiently dissolving all the accumulated tension, filling the emptiness he had created inside with solid securities.

Kenma sniff, “.. You mean, metaphorically speaking.”

Kuroo curls his lips, his smile hopeless.

“I will physically too, whenever you want.”

“You know it won't be the same thing ..”

“I'll make it work. I promise.” Kenma knows he would - he doesn't believe the absurd and sappiness romance, but kuroo, he does, he believes him.

The road is deserted, and they are so close and intimate, like two lovers -  _they are_ . Down the stairs, they sit along the grassy banks that line the river bed.

“You kept this for the whole day, mh?” He says with a sort of disconsolate love, the arm that holds around his slender shoulders just tightens, a gentle grasp. Kenma melts, cuddled and spoiled by his voice, by his hand, playing with his fingers.

“I didn't think it made any difference.” He admits, like the utter fool he is, sharing Yamamoto and those girls’ tears - he makes them his own, dried on the taut skin of his cheeks. “I didn't rationalize.”

“You scared me, I don't see you cry often.”

“.. You know, I'm a human being too.”

Kuroo holds him close, gentle kisses fall like snow on his temple, his hair, the corner of his mouth. “You made me happy.”

“.. weirdo.”

The laughter vibrates in his chest - he will miss it  _so much_ .

“Not in that sense, you fool, I meant that I'm glad you'll miss me.”

“Mh,” Kenma squeezes his two fingertips in his hand. He looks at his face and sees his features relax, a blush of joyful awkwardness brushes his face - the same warmth that he feels burning his own cheeks, making his breath tremble. “.. What are you smiling for?”

“Nothing, I was thinking that I will buries you of sappy messages and will bought for you gifts like the craziest of all the boyfriends.”

A small frown ruffles kenma’s face, and there’s a twist to his lips, “No please.”

“Will you think of me?”

“When I have to eat, yes, because I'll have to do it myself.” He says matter-of-factly.

“Your high consideration for me is touching.” Kuroo’s expression completely deadpan.

“Don't cry too much.”

He would miss all that - so stupidly familiar, a foolish habit compared to many other moments spent together. But it was the details, little pieces of life -  _all his life_ spent with him. He would have to get used to it.

Kuroo puts a hand on his chest, beside his heart, “Don't be so insensitive, I'm a jealous and easily influenced boyfriend.”

“What should you be jealous of?”

“That there could be someone who fall for you when i'm not around.”

The merely idea makes him laugh in a snort that moves his bleached hair, “It’s statistically more likely that  _you_ are the one who make someone fall. You will meet new people, interesting, different from me; you will go out, talk to them every day, and they could fall in love with you and..”

_and you'll forget me._

“Do you really believe this?” Kuroo’s eyes widens – caught in a deadlock of disbelief and something like joy. Kenma looks at him, humming, closed in the soft and comfortable circle of his arms. The smile slowly flattens on his lips, creating something that softens his features. “Stupid,” he sighs.

Kuroo understands him. He reads words that he never spoke, reads him more than he can read himself.

His stomach writhes when his lips touch the corner of his mouth. He bends over, nuzzling his face against the neck. A sense of belonging – of possession and surrender all at the same time, bittersweet as his kisses.

Words as a promise of devotion whispered in soft breaths, “my stupid, precious Kenma,” Reverence in every touch. In every syllable, even in pronouncing his name he holds his heart. “You will always be my one and only.”

A numbing sensation traverses down Kenma’s spine, rolling down each bone in a gentle caress.

“You’re so sappy, y’know?”

He laughs, low, vibrant. “I've always been.”

“I know,” The kiss is on the tip of his lips, flickering butterflies in his veins and the heart throbs madly against his thin chest. Kuroo pulls him to himself, welcomes him wrapping his arms around his waist as if he couldn't bear to let him go – as if he had never thought of letting him go. His gentle lips barely touch him - out of shyness, for an intimacy that, Kenma knows, Kuroo doesn’t want to showoff. “i love you anyway.”

Black, deep eyes glints and that beloved mouth curved in a knowing smiles;  _absolute wonder_ , as if he wanted burning his face, the curve of his lips, the glassy gold eyes, his entire image in his soul – the same way Kenma knows that he will look at him whenever they’ll meet - because is  _him._

He's and always will be there.


End file.
